Drum Recording - Room Mics

[brandondrury]

What's a room mic supposed to sound like?

That's a bullshit question. There are no rules.

Let's post a bunch of our room mics we've recorded just to compare them. Feel free to talk about how you used them in a mix or even post a clip of the final mix itself.

The idea here is to give some perspective on what room mic tracks you've recorded, if you liked them, and what role they played in the mix. I understand that not all of us have good rooms and that's okay.

This is more of a thread for helping beginners than anything.

[brandondrury]

I'll go first.

This is a band called Improv of 7 Dying Men
Improv of 7 Dying Men (NEW MUSIC!) on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Videos

I just finished mixing this a few days ago.

It was tracked in a large warehouse style room (maybe 25'x30' give or take) with wood floors, 12' ceilings which were unfinished wood. All walls were painted and parallel. There was quite a bit of stuff in the room (music gear, misc storage) which I had the guys all cram into one corner to get the room as lively as I could get it.

I placed an AKG 414 behind a 4x12 cabinet so that the direct sound of the drums would be knocked down a bit.

I've included a compressed version to show typically how I'd process this track. It may have ended up a bit different in the real mix, but this gets the point across. I used a URS 1980 compressor. 4:1 ratio, 10ms attack, 40ms release set to reduce about 12dB off the peaks.

Note: The real mix is WAYYY louder than the drum tracks.

[magno]

Nice, that room sounds awesome Brandon.
I'm a big fan of room mics these days.
Here's a snippet from something I've been working on lately for my secret solo project.
Straight To MP3 on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Videos
Yeah I know shameless plug, but Brandon started it.
This was recorded in my live room, it's kinda L shaped and is about 25'x20' on the outside with an 6'x6' partitioned off room in the corner. It has an 18' hallway at one side that is 7' wide for the first half and 3.5' for the second. There is a 4' wide stairwell at the other side going straight upstairs, the highest part is a about 17' high. The ceiling is suspended acoustic tile about 8' high with carpet below. The walls have some custom made absorbers at the early reflection points, there's a big futon couch, comfy chair, and a bunch of other crap to diffuse sounds.
On this particular track I.m using 2 room mics, well it's actually 3. The room mic is actually the stereo mics from an old Yashicacamcorder. It's mounted on this huge boom stand at ceiling height pointed toward the kit about 12' away. I know it's kinda crazy, but the camera is there anyways for video monitoring from the control room, so why not? the two mics are summed to one mono in to the DAW.
The stair mic, an ATM 41a is at the top of the stairs on a stand pointing up at the high ceiling. The mic is about 20' away from the kit and about 14' above it. The stairwell has absolutely nothing on the walls and the stairs are uncovered wood. Very echoey. The gain on the pre is just shy of full blast.
The room mic has about 7db compression 2:1 ratio 800ms release, Waves VComp mono.
The stair mic has about 8db compression 1.5:1 ratio 300ms release, Waves VComp mono.
This is a quick mix , but any bashing will be welcome.

[rockerdude]

Here is my recording of a room mic.
It was recorded in my live tracking room at my small home studio.I used a Blue baby bottle mic thru a Robbie mic pre.
I use pro tools.My conversion is a Apogee rosetta through a Toft ATB 24console into a Alesis masterdisk for the burn.
My room is treated with ATS acoustic pannels and it has a low celing and a brick floor.The mic was about 10' from the kit.
Please excuse my sloppy drumming,my main instrument is Guitar.
I haven't used room mics much in the past but I think I will in the future.
This is a raw track with no EQ,compression but after I burned off this CD I noticed I had my transient designer(Outboard version not the plugin) on the track so It might sound a little choked,sorry.I thought this sounded ok.
I bet it would sound great with the whole band and miced kit in the mix.[ATTACH] my studio is at www.sterlingsoundstudios.com

[lolzgreg]

I'm not feeling the room mic, it has no ambience to it in the above clip.

[rockerdude]

yeah it sucks

[lolzgreg]

What kind of mic are you using? Where is placed in relation to the kit? I know you have hard floors, which are perfect for room mics. Take a few pics of your room and I'll try to help you place it.

[rockerdude]

I have a small room(16'x22') that I use as my live tracking room thats kinda dead.The mic was a blue bottle about ten feet from the kit.I should have had the mic much farther away I guess.I will try this again later when I have the kit set up.I have a room in my house that is huge with a indoor pool I think I will try micing the kit in there just for fun and post it.Thanks for the help,Rob

[lolzgreg]

You can get great drum tones in a 22x16 room. I think your issue may be too much absorption and not enough diffusion if you're talking about deadness. Hmm..

[brandondrury]

I recorded drums in a metal building with junk everywhere and I like the room sound better than the room I recorded drums in a few years ago up in St. Louis with a Neve. I'll be posting them before too long.

Brandon